The author of Ad Infinitum: A Biography of Latin and Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World, Nicholas Ostler here portrays English as the last in a long line of lingua francas, after Greek, Latin, Arabic, and many others. It is the most widely spoken language in human history, based on its global use in commerce, technology, and entertainment—and yet, Ostler persuasively argues, English will be displaced as the world's language in the not-too-distant future, and it will be the last of its kind.

"A bracing history of lingua francas and their dynamic variation, with a focus on the perfect wave that International English is riding—toward a wipeout.... [Ostler's] aim is not pedantic but to pique general readers' code-cracking interest. Ostler does not assume specialist knowledge, but he does assume that his readers share his gargantuan and voluptuary appetite for words, languages and history."—Kirkus Reviews